


you know you'll always be haunted

by KilltheDJ



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Fear, Gen, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Scarecrow's Fear Toxin (DCU)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:49:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27122764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KilltheDJ/pseuds/KilltheDJ
Summary: Fear toxin is designed to make you cower; bring any little fear or insecurity to life, to make you the very thing you try to hide from; twist your world into a nightmare created of the little needles in your head. Jason Todd shouldn't have been cocky and assumed that his helmet's filters were working properly.There are a few conclusions everyone comes to in the process.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 95





	you know you'll always be haunted

Gotham protected her own. 

The looming, leering gargoyles atop old churches crumbled underneath the weight of a thousand battles, a thousand threats diminished among their roof-tops; the angels sat in their glass cases in the church windows and watched in a solemn prayer as another hero stopped another villain and on and on the cycle went. 

It would never end. The evil would never leave, and the heroes would never rest. They said they would, they said it all the time, but they never abided by their word, dawning the cowl or the mask or the hood for  _ one last time,  _ they said,  _ one last time.  _

One last time turned into another ten, and another ten turned into another hundred, and on the story went until they were bloody and broken and swearing off the life once again. 

“Anyone down for some TL-fuckin’-C?” Jason coughed, muttering into the comms, his helmet making it rather difficult to vomit up his lungs like he wanted to. Funny how a broken helmet and some fucking smoke bombs made him talkative. 

At least it wasn’t making him laugh. 

“Hood? Hood, what’s wrong?”

Oracle, always diligent, always there to watch their tragedies and victories spin themselves out of thin air with a few clues and, usually, a murder or kidnapping or two. Oracle, always there, always making sure they were safe and making fun of them in the most friendly biting way possible. 

Jason tried to crack a smile she couldn’t see, but the bottom half of his mask was still on his face, not covering his nose, which hurt like a bitch. It might be broken, fuck. “Smoke inhalation. Don’t you just  _ love  _ when your  _ face helmet  _ with  _ fil -  _ Fuck!”

Fuck, Jason clutched at his ribs, which really wasn’t any help, his eyes shit tight.  _ Keep it the fuck together. Not difficult. This isn’t… No. Just keep it together. Keep breathing.  _

“Hood?  _ Hood?  _ Location and status?” 

“Look it fuckin’ up!” Jason hissed, but his face felt too tight, the skin pulled too thin, and his jaw resented it, the way he tried to grit his teeth, the way his nose was throbbing and it was like every other bone in his broken and and  _ and -  _

Fucking hell, Jason.  _ Jason. Red Hood.  _ Red Hood, broken helmet, not a mask, not a warehouse, not - 

Well, it was a warehouse, but it was too  _ cold  _ and not too hot with burns biting at his fingertips and he was  _ here,  _ not  _ there,  _ and he really needed to  _ get the hell out of here  _ before he took another trip down memory fucking lane. 

Fucking Scarecrow and his stupid fucking breakout, and this stupid fucking city that he could never really leave but it had never truly felt like his home in the same way the people who’d abandoned him were and  _ fuck fuck fuck  _ the ground was swallowing him whole, taking him  _ back,  _ back to the grave where he  _ belonged,  _ where he never should’ve left. 

Oracle’s voice was  _ slippery,  _ in one ear and out the other, faint and confusing and it wasn’t her voice at all, it was the snake in his head whispering, whispering,  _ you don’t belong here. You will never belong here with them.  _

They were alive, and he wasn’t meant to be. They were real, they were heroes, and he was the failed son, Batman’s greatest failure with two guns by his sides and a deathwish eating away at him. 

When Jason unscrewed his eyes, opened them, he couldn’t see the bland, stereotypical warehouse he’d been in - but he could see the outline of a crowbar on the floor and crates stacked by the door, blood coating the ground in a sickly new paint,  _ not good enough not good enough not good enough.  _

Laughter echoed throughout the room, a madman’s laugh with a taste for beating boys who didn’t know any better, purple and green until the warehouse was a polka-dotted color collage of the same purple and green with red splattered across the splotches, the blood on the floor the same shape as a boy who died too young, his demons back to haunt him. 

He screamed. He screamed and screamed and  _ screamed  _ because the purple and the green started to blur around the edges when he screamed and he couldn’t  _ not  _ scream and there was Robin, the Jason Todd that wasn’t a fuck-up, staring back at him with a blood-red liquidity to him and he was  _ real  _ he was real and he hated who Jason had become he  _ hated him he hated him.  _

Jason didn’t blame him. 

The crates in the background had changed, without his knowledge, dark and imposing in the corner and there stood the outline of a familiar car, the Batmobile in the shadows and a looming cape with a galaxy behind his cowl standing in front of Jason, larger than life,  _ better than Jason in every sense of the word.  _

The Bat with his bloodied knuckles and displeased frown, a broken red helmet crushed in his fist, finally done with Jason, finally over the familial bond they shared before he was the fucked-up, Lazarus-infected version of a boy that  _ died.  _ That died in that warehouse and would be horrified to find out  _ he  _ wore that red helmet. 

The angry kid with a deathwish in the field. Never the same as the boy who sat on the couch when he needed to study, because that boy  _ died,  _ because he wasn’t  _ good enough to save.  _

The Bat snapped the helmet in two, falling to the ground,  _ shattering,  _ melting like acid into the blood-coated floor, becoming part of the liquid ghost, Robin, enough to slowly cover his head with the helmet,  _ you were never meant to be innocent. You were always meant to die.  _

No, no, no, he couldn’t, he couldn’t, he couldn’t and his face was too tight, too thin, the invisible helmet pressing down, smaller and smaller and smaller and squashing his head, caving in his skull. 

Jason managed to scratch through the shitty leather of his gloves, his finger nails a cold relief against his skin as he scratched at his face, his hair, his scalp, his neck, trying trying  _ trying  _ to rid himself of the helmet digging into his skin. 

All he found was blood blood and more  _ blood  _ and he couldn’t - not with the floors - not with - but the screaming didn’t make it any better, the screaming didn’t help, the Bat was standing there, looming, watching him, and finally there was that  _ voice,  _ that looming  _ voice.  _ “You hurt them.  _ You hurt them.”  _

Hurt them? Jason didn’t hurt anyone. He didn’t hurt anyone, he said he wouldn’t hurt anyone anymore! Unless they - unless he decided they… 

Oh, God. 

Jason pried his nails off his skin, coming off slick with  _ something  _ under his nails with crescent moons dug into his cheekbones, he didn’t care he didn’t care he didn’t  _ care he needed to see. _

In front of him lay bodies. 

All Jason can make out are domino masks and neon colors.  _ Blue red green.  _

Blue red green and far more red than was on Tim Drake’s costume. Red red  _ red  _ and it wasn’t his liquefied ghost in front of him, in a blood-made floor, no, no, it was  _ bodies  _ with enough  _ red  _ that it soaked through the blue of Dick’s logo, of the green in Damian’s boots, so much  _ red  _ that he didn’t know where they ended and he started and  _ he did this.  _

“I’m - I’m sorry,” is what he croaked out to the Bat, a graveyard within the bounds of that cape, a draw that he’d crawled out of, that his siblings never would, that he put there,  _ he hurt them he hurt them he hurt them after he said he’d stopped.  _

He hurt them. 

He hurt them and the Bat was going to resent him, was going to mourn his children in the only way he knew how and Jason was the one that did that to him and Jason was going to end up alone and beaten and  _ afraid and - and he couldn’t deal with the Bat looming over him and his graveyard anymore.  _

_ 

“You could’ve gotten us here earlier.” But there wasn’t much more Tim -  _ Red Robin -  _ could say, the warehouse devoid of life. 

Save for the singular figure in the center, staring at nothing on the floor with horror, remnants of a shattered helmet on the floor. 

Dick -  _ Nightwing - _ was standing next to him, and they both got over their momentary shock - they had to. Fear toxin was a bitchy thing to deal with, and it wasn’t something they’d been planning on when the night started. 

So it wasn’t like they had the antidote on them. 

Regardless, Tim rushed forward with Dick, and the more agile of the two side-stepped the helmet without missing a beat and taking Jason into his arms, while Tim tried to remember why the fuck he was here. 

“RR? Double R? You there?” Oracle asked in his ear, no doubt more worried now that  _ three  _ of the night’s vigilantes weren’t answering their comms. 

“Yeah, I’m here,” Tim started, gritting his teeth as he avoided looking at Jason - he shouldn’t, it wasn’t right, he was far too vulnerable and Tim didn’t have a  _ right  _ to see him at his worst. “Hood, uh, he got hit  _ bad  _ by some fear toxin. Effects are setting in, full extent right now, seem to be getting worse while his body shuts down. I didn’t get a good look, but none of us have an antidote right now.” 

Oracle didn’t miss a beat - and neither did Tim, turning on his heel and catching the semi-automatic pistol Dick threw at him, tossing it to the ground, and then the other, all the while Jason whimpered in Dick’s arms, breathing too hard and tears streaking down his face and crescent moons dug so deep into his face it was impossible that some of them wouldn’t leave scars. 

“You both get an alert and neither of you think to come back to the Cave? Check around for any canisters that could be used to release more, I’m sending Spoiler your way - make sure it’s the same strain as last time.” 

Tim nodded to Dick to check Jason’s vitals, see if it matched up with the same fear toxin as  _ last time  _ (there was always a last time, with them) while silent footsteps took him to the corners of the room, scanning to find the canister that had caused this. 

Jason didn’t deserve that. 

Everyone in the dysfunctional vigilante life had their own fair share of trauma, from nearly getting murdered by your resurrected adopted brother in your safe space to your childhood circus turning out to be a front for a secret society of rich people with issues, but Jason’s fear was strong enough to cause a hurricane. 

Rage and fear came hand in hand, and with the rage stored in Jason’s mind, the ever-shifting green to his eyes and red to his vision, it was damn near immeasurable. To get hit with a concentrated dose of fear toxin… 

Tim hoped,  _ hoped  _ he never saw what Jason was seeing, from the way he clearly wrestled his own helmet off to the way he’d tried to claw his own face off.. 

_ Focus on the field, Timmy.  _

Focus. Right. Nothing seems to be particularly of interest, which makes him believe it was more of a hit and run than anything, and Scarecrow was indeed on the loose again. The man never liked to leave his creations behind, and would usually stay to see the effects, but it was likely that Jason was labeled as too dangerous of a threat to observe. 

Which was true by all standards, based on the way that Dick tossed him Jason’s guns, and the way that Tim himself is reverting to looking at everything in a purely logistic manner, because he didn’t know if he could handle when he would find if he went the empathetic or emotional route. 

Jason Todd is many things. Dangerous is one of them. 

And as a former protege of Batman, the League of Assassins, and the All-Caste, fear was another stepping stone of its twin, and therefore to control one, you had to master the other. 

Tim wasn’t surprised when he turned around to see Dick grimacing, trying to hold Jason upright while also trying to hold both of his wrists - from the red dotted around Dick’s exposed cheekbone, Jason had gotten a good swing in before Dick had started trying to stop him. 

Sweet nothings and reassurances only helped your nightmare fuel when you were hyped up on fear gas. There was nothing Tim could  _ do  _ other than stand there, stand there and wait for Spoiler to show up and figure out what the best course of action would be to keep anyone from getting hurt. 

And maybe he didn’t want to be near a fear-induced Jason Todd, guns or no guns, terrified or not because he’d been to hell and back and wore it like a badge on his stupid fucking leather jacket.  _ Fear  _ wasn’t going to stop him if his rattled mind allowed him to get a concrete goal. 

Steph needed to hurry up with that antidote. 

The Bat-mobile was out of the question - that’s what they would’ve used to get Jason back to the Cave, but Bruce insisted on bringing it  _ with  _ him when he went down for some Justice League mission, and they wrecked all the other spares, and it was far too dangerous to try to move Jason on one of their motorcycles. 

Jesus fucking fuck. Luck wasn’t on their side tonight, was it? 

“You got any cuffs on you, Red?” Dick asked, looking up at Tim with sympathy behind his mask, the kind that wasn’t meant for him, but for Jason. 

Regardless, TIm automatically tossed him the handcuffs that had been hooked to his belt - Jason hated being restrained; but Dick had to fight him for at least twenty seconds to get the cuffs on in general, so it was safer for him. 

_ Safer for him.  _ Jason hated shit like that - being restrained for his own safety. Reminded him too much of being six feet under, or in an Ethopian warehouse, or - 

Oh.  _ Oh.  _

That’s probably why his reaction was so bad. 

It wasn’t a concentrated dose. That was why Tim couldn’t find the canister - not because it simply wasn’t there, but because it wasn’t a canister at all. 

It was a hit-and-run, far too quick for a concentrated dose to be used at all, because that took at least thirty seconds to let the canister itself empty, and by then, Jason would’ve gained his bearings enough to make sure that his helmet didn’t break, and Scarecrow would be smart enough to be long gone. 

Someone - and probably not Scarecrow himself, but a goon of some kind, but the fear toxin’s presence at all meant that the villain was involved somehow - had surprised him, used the slight hesitancy Jason still had around warehouses that looked  _ just like the one he’d died in,  _ and broke his helmet, only having the time to release a little bit of the toxin, that Jason’s body amplified by making his delusions worse than they already were. 

He was already in a situation that caused him stress (and fear, whether Jason was willing to consciously admit it at all), so he was  _ already  _ producing fear. And then with the gas…  _ Fuck, _ basically. Jason was going to be pissed when he woke up. 

Maybe Tim would keep the new information between him and the report, since Jason never read the reports, and Bruce would want to know. 

“Are you brooding again?” 

“Just… figured something out,” Tim muttered, pretending he didn’t hear the strain in Nightwing’s cheerful voice, the one that said he was trying to keep from panicking.

No matter how many times they’d gone through this routine, it was still nerve-racking. 

They were Bats. Fear ran next to them like death ran next to life; a part of them, always looming, but held back the more they tried to keep from acknowledging it.  _ They were Bats.  _ They fought their fears whenever they were presented with them, because it was part of the life. 

_ They were Bats.  _ They had so much fear that if Jason’s body kept amplifying it, playing off it again and again and making the delusions worse, the gas wouldn’t ever leave his system, he’d be - the strain on his heart, no… 

“Spoiler, ETA?” Tim swallowed into his commlink, refusing to acknowledge what he’d already deduced as one of the most likely scenarios if Spoiler showed up too late. Like they had - who knows how long late (fifteen minutes) and a day (antidote) short. 

“Five minutes. Going as fast as I can, Oracle wanted me to ask how his vitals were - Nightwing isn’t responding to further questions.” Well, she certainly  _ sounded  _ like she was ignoring all possible speeding laws. 

Tim didn’t mention his passing fear of Jason’s heart stopping. “Having to give in to your brother’s biggest fears,  _ because  _ of his fears will do that. N’s got him restrained, his vitals are continuing to spike.” He didn’t need to be near him to know that. “The same strain, but pre-existing conditions are making it worse than a concentrated dose. Probably the severity of a shot straight to the bloodstream.” 

Oracle was no doubt diligently taking notes for the report that he’d be filing later on what happened, but in his pacing, Tim eventually ended up back at Jason’s side, kneeling down and pretending he didn’t see the tear slip out underneath Dick’s mask.

Tim wasn’t the one holding Jason, seeing his fears make his eyes go glassy, or screw shut, or close all together. Tim couldn’t do that. 

And later, he knew Dick would laugh and joke and smile and it wasn’t something anyone deserved, but oh, these were the lives they led and they wouldn’t give it up. 

After all, it gave them the opportunity to save people - and each other. 

Despite Dick having done so earlier, Tim felt Jason’s neck for his pulse point, far too frantic and unsteady, needing to confirm his earlier theory. He was correct. 

_ Fuck.  _

_ 

You know, Jason was getting rather sick of waking up in a Med-Bay. 

It wasn’t the first time he’d woken up in the Med-Bay of the Cave, though Dick liked to call it  _ the Bat-Bay  _ for the sake of puns, and it wouldn’t be the last, though he had one killer headache and his  _ face  _ ached, pulled too thin and probably soaked in  _ something.  _

Fucking  _ gross.  _

When Jason decided it was time to wake up, peeling his eyes open to the familiar fluorescents of said infirmary, he groaned, already well-aware of the well-worn handcuffs keeping him restrained to the fucking cot. 

Still didn’t trust him, huh? He hadn’t killed anyone lately. Violated Batman’s  _ biggest rule.  _

(You would think that his biggest rule would be to keep his kids alive, keep them kicking, but Jason had long since stopped contemplating it. It only hurt.) 

Whatever. He would get out of them, he knew he would, but he would stay. Because his body ached and there was something in his chest that  _ burned,  _ far more than the handcuffs bit into his skin or whatever was on his face. 

_ Nostalgia. _

Why was he nostalgic? The past was the past, he’d accepted that, but something that happened last night must be making him remember things that simply hadn’t happened in a while. 

Hm. What happened last night? 

He remembered being in a warehouse, he remembered talking to Oracle over the comms, and….  _ Oh. _

Fear toxin. Fuck, he remembered that, the fear toxin he got to the face, the lug wrench that managed to shatter his helmet - it was much like a motorcycle or a bicycle helmet in that if it took previous damage, then he needed to replace it, because it was more liable to break upon impact. 

Looked like he got sloppy. Of  _ course  _ he got sloppy; too comfortable and all that. 

Nevertheless, the fear toxin induced hallucinations were just that:  _ hallucinations.  _ Something that he could now prove to be false that he shouldn’t think about. Didn’t need to think about. It was designed to do that, to make even the most fearless warriors cower. 

_ Didn’t need to think about it.  _

His face hurt. Why did his face hurt? 

“You took quite the beating,” said a voice, one that no doubt belonged to one  _ Dick Grayson,  _ coming through the doorway with light footsteps - held himself like an acrobat, even after all these years. 

Jason hummed; the ache in his throat was preventing him from being too snappy, too frustrating, so he settled. “Guess I did. You gonna uncuff me now?” 

“Are you going to try right-hooking me again?” Dick wasn’t joking. The purple and red mark on the side of his face proved that much, and Jason’s teeth grit out of their own accord -  _ fuck.  _ He did that, didn’t he? 

“Does it look like I’m in any shape to right-hook you?” 

Dick snickered, tense and hovering like Jason was a rabid fucking animal that everyone knew would be put down sooner or later. He  _ wasn’t.  _ And he wasn’t - he wasn’t the same bloody ghost as the fucking fear toxin would lead him to believe. “You rose up from the dead to be spiteful, I don’t put it past you.” 

“I did it once, don’t really plan on doing it again.” It was easier to joke. That was Dick’s specialty, but Jason allowed himself a hint of a smile as Dick walked over, circling, and eventually turning the key in his handcuffs. 

Jason didn’t move, but it was nice to feel less like a prisoner in what used to be his own home, less like a ghost still haunting him. 

He could see the glass case that held his old costume in the Bat-Cave. He could  _ see  _ the burns and the missing fabric and the years-old  _ blood.  _ He would have to convince Bruce to take that down sometime. 

Jason Todd was many things, and alive was one of them, so he should be treated as such. Not another failure, not another martyr son, and certainly not some hero to be remembered, memorialized in a glass case for the guilt that came with his name. 

Still, Dick sighed, shoulders deflating with the sudden lack of a cheerful persona to keep them up. “You didn’t get hit with a lot of fear toxin, Little Wing. It still nearly stopped your heart, though.” 

“Guess I’m getting a little slow.” No, he wasn’t, and if he was, he would never admit it. That’s how you knew he was lying. 

Dick knew that, shaking his head and crossing his arms like a disappointed mentor or something.  _ Disappointed older brother,  _ Jason’s mind hissed. “Tim says it’s probably because you were already in a place of fear. Looked too much like something that already scared you. Amped up the fear toxin until it nearly killed you.” 

“Science doesn’t work like that.”

“ _ Science doesn’t work like that,”  _ Dick mimicked with a half-hearted smile, “you say, as the guy who came back from the dead, who regularly gets into fights with people who regularly escape an asylum, and work with people that regularly dress up as Bats and  _ haven’t  _ had their identities blatantly spoken to the general public.” 

“That’s just  _ weird,  _ not scientific inconsistencies.” 

“Do you want me to go on?” 

“...Point taken.” 

That, at the very least, got an actual smile out of Dick. Look, Jason was just as much of an ass as he could try to be, but Dick Grayson was shit at taking care of himself, and there was always a level of guilt to being the person that caused him all that stress. 

Or maybe that’s just the Before talking, the Jason that would do anything to get his approval - even if it got him into sticky situations with Bruce, because he never wanted to feel like he was impeding on Dick’s territory, didn’t want Dick to hate him for taking his title, his mantle. 

Fuck fuck  _ fuck.  _ He wasn’t that kid before, he needed to stop thinking about disappointing golden boy Dick Grayson. He usually didn’t. 

He supposed seeing the hallucinated bodies of his siblings and a looming Bat, ever closer and ever more brutal, made a blast to the past all the better. _ Fuck.  _

At the very least, he knew that Dick wasn’t going to ask what he saw. That was always the routine when it came to fear toxin; you didn’t answer and no one asked, because the brand of fear that came with it would be enough to make anyone else  _ give up.  _

Unfortunately, Bats and their ilk didn’t know how to do that. 

It would always worry Dick, and it always would, but that was inevitable. But he wouldn’t ask. He wouldn’t break the silent agreement between all of them.

Dick seemed to be thinking the same thing, troubled eyes and brows furrowed as he looked down at Jason’s mostly-still form. His silence was worse than his puns. Quietly, he said, “We only restrained you because you were a danger to yourself. Alfred said those claw marks on your face won’t leave scars, after a while. Hope you got some rest, Little Wing.” 

And with that, before Jason could answer, or try to find an answer that kept them at an arm’s length, enough to make sure that they didn’t hit anything touchy, anything that could break the fragile, tenuous relationship he had with the rest of his adoptive family, Dick turned on his heel was out the door. 

Well, ex-adoptive? Did being legally dead mean he wasn’t legally adopted? Wait a second, or if he came back legally, he would still legally be Bruce’s son, right? So… 

Ah, fuck it. 

Dick was already gone, so he could drop the thought process. 

_ 

Dick didn’t come to visit him again. Tim brought him a mostly-burned Tostinos pizza with cold pineapple haphazardly thrown on. Damian came in to hand him a throwing star, telling him to  _ keep entertained, you need it if you were taken out so easily on a simple recon mission.  _

Kid wasn’t perfect, but he was better than he used to be. 

Bruce didn’t come to visit him. Honestly, Jason didn’t know whether that disappointed him or not. 

He didn’t know if he would see  _ Bruce,  _ or if he would see  _ the Bat.  _

**Author's Note:**

> >:3 hopefully u enjoyed !! thoughts ?


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